Coding Out the Female Voice: Gendered Silences in Tahmima Anam’s The Startup Wife

Abstract

Tahmima Anam’s masterfully crafted novel, The Startup Wife, critiques  marginalisation of women in the digital culture. This novel emphasises the necessity of women’s empowerment in the technological domain. This paper examines the gender bias that occurs in the technological field. It talks about the discrimination of women in the current world in tech firms through the protagonist, Asha Ray. It analyses how digital culture reproduces patriarchal power structures through the titular startup wife, Asha who starts a new venture together with her husband, Cyrus, in New York’s tech incubator called Utopia. Ultimately, it addresses the gender discrimination in STEM industries while also envisioning possibilities of women’s empowerment.